


Stay

by reginahalliwell



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s04e21 Last Week Fights This Week Tights, F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 08:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6072025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reginahalliwell/pseuds/reginahalliwell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Diverges near the end of "Last Week Fights, This Week Tights"</p>
<p>Jess begs her to leave, Rory asks him to stay. </p>
<p>It's not a fresh start, but it could be a new beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay

“If you really want to be with me, then it shouldn’t matter where.” Rory was fuming, confused, slightly tipsy from her impromptu outing with Dean.

Jess was bombarding her with possibilities for another go at this roller coaster of a relationship. Things with Dean were weird enough, and this really wasn’t the time for Jess to barge back into Rory’s life and try to upset the tenuous balance she had struck.

It had taken her long enough to get over him, to get past her feelings of abandonment and abuse, not feeling like she was enough for him, enough to make him grow up and love her like she needed him to.

“Not here, Rory, let’s just go away and start fresh.”

“No.” She was insistent, not ready to abandon her life and her dreams all for this boy who had already broken her heart.

He repeated that he was ready, that she was ready, that this was meant to be. They were meant to be.

“I can’t,” she kept saying. “I know you say I can count on you now but I just can’t trust you. You’ve been gone so long, I barely feel like I know you anymore. You say you’ve changed, but how am I supposed to believe that?”

“I can prove it to you. Come with me, I love you, let’s just go be together away from all this crap.”

“This crap is my life, Jess, my life that I was pretty happy with before…” she broke off.

He waited, thinking first about how he had already screwed this up. He saw Dean, saw red, and totally abandoned his plan. He was pushing her, and he knew it. She would never go with him at this rate.

But he also saw that she wasn’t happy. Certainly not with this talk, but she also just didn’t seem like herself. She wasn’t the same Rory he had left behind, not the same idealistic Rory that he had started to love.

He was trying to regroup, figure out the right things to say and the best way to say them, when she started again. “Don’t tell me what I want, what I’m ready for. You don’t know me anymore.”

“I want to,” he said, as sincerely as he could.

She sat down on a box nearby, put her face in her hands and then sighed audibly. She ran her fingers back through her hair, thinking.

“Then, stay.” She said it simply, making no promises. “Prove that you have changed. We don’t need a fresh start. I just need to believe that you’ve grown up enough, that I can trust you.”

“Come on, Rory,” he pleaded, “Please, let’s just go away.”

“No. If you want to try this again, you can’t leave, you can’t go away and hope to leave all your problems—our problems—behind. Stars Hollow wasn’t the problem. Dean, my mom, Luke, they weren’t the problem. But if you want this, you have to stay and face them.”

He ambled around the room, the buckle of his jacket swaying with each stuttered movement. He looked out the window, glaring at everything around as if Yale were the reason his life had fallen apart.

“What happened to 22.8 miles, Jess? What happened to you being around, being there for me?”

He looked down, clearly ashamed of his part in this whole mess. “I wanted to be there for you, I really did.” He looked like he was still figuring out what to do, but then he raised his head again, turning to look at her.

“Okay, Rory. I’ll stay.”

“You will, really? No running away this time?”

“No running. Does this mean we—” He started to ask, but Rory stopped him short.

“Maybe,” she said sharply. “Just maybe. I’m not promising that just because you stick around everything will work out. I’m just saying, stay, and I might be willing to give you—us—another chance.”

“I really do think we’re meant to be together,” he said, holding eye contact with her despite the awkwardness.

“I want to believe that,” Rory admitted, “I really do. We’ll have to see.”

“So…what does this mean?” he asked, not sure what to do from here.

“I don’t know. I guess… Do you want to help me move my stuff?”

He shrugged and nodded. “Sure. You headed back to Stars Hollow?”

She nodded her affirmation and turned to see if she had left anything in her bedroom. It was all cleared out. She had been ready earlier to go home anyway, but that stupid not-date had waylaid her plans.

Rory turned and tried to backpedal—“You don’t have to help, Jess. There’s not much, I can take it myself.”

He shook is head dumbly. “It’s fine. I want to—I need to show you I’m serious. Let’s get your stuff in the car and back home. Luke offered a place to crash for a few days anyway, so I need to head that way if I’m going to stick around.”

“You’re going to stay with Luke?” she asked.

He knew what she meant. The two of them got along only in the best of circumstances, and that tiny apartment really wasn’t ideal.

“Not all summer, but maybe until I find a place, sign a lease.”

Her eyes widened a bit, like she still didn’t believe he was really doing this. For her. For them.

This was their best chance.

She walked over to him, tentatively bringing her hands up to rest on his arms, before pulling him into a hug. He clearly wasn’t sure what to expect, but as soon as she held him close, he relaxed and returned the embrace.

“Thank you, Jess,” she said softly into his hair.

He shook his head, holding her closer. He didn’t need to say the words—couldn’t say how much this chance meant to him. He could never truly thank her or express his feelings for her, but he would show her.


End file.
